


By Another Way

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26255536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: In which skekMal and urVa take charge of their own happy ending.
Relationships: skekMal/urVa (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	By Another Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubster/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my wonderful friend, Rubs. May all your dreams come true, except for the scary ones.

SkekMal never thought it would end like this.

When he was a much younger Skeksis, with more feathers than common sense and the illusion of immortality in front of him, he thought he would spend the rest of forever tearing about the forests of Thra, cracking bones between his teeth and accumulating dirt beneath his talons and never wanting for anything else.

He believed, for perhaps too long, that the Skeksis could be coaxed out into the wilds with him. That they could be made to see that there was something beyond the soft life they were accustomed to, something with teeth and pulse and _purpose._

That they could be changed.

Even when that proved a fool's errand – when he and skekSo drifted apart – nothing had ever led him to believe his own path would be anything but a long, glorious eternity of quarries and trophies. The hunt was untouchable. The hunt was immutable.

The hunt was for always.

How could he ever have forseen himself laid out on cold stone, with an arrow in his chest?

How could he ever have imagined that his last thought would be to hope, with the last ounce of breath and beat that had not been driven from his chest, that he and the Archer would not be forced together?

***

_Pain._

_Throat dry as tanned hide._

_Opening his eyes and being met with the Archer, bandaged and stretched out on the slab opposite him. The warm smell of cooking, the hint of urdrupe on the air._

_Soft brown eyes gazing at him as though they've been waiting a thousand trine for him to wake, and would happily wait a thousand more._

“ _...SkekMal.”_

“ _...Archer.”_

_Reaching for one another in spite of the hurt, in spite of it all, and holding hands for a very long time._

***

“ _Hypocrite. As bad as your leader, and you were supposed to be better than that. You're as afraid of death as anyone else.”_

“ _Of course I am. And still, I shot you down.”_

“ _Hah! Should have aimed higher if you wanted to make an end of it that badly.”_

“ _SkekMal, the one thing I cannot abide is the thought of harm coming to Thra's children. The second is harm coming to you.”_

“ _...Well, didn't make a difference, did it? What either of us wanted. Here we are.”_

“ _I was thinking...perhaps we might change all of that, right here and now.”_

“ _...Come again?”_

“ _We can't continue on like this, skekMal. Do you even want to try? I feel that there has to be another way, a better way, but only if we come together.”_

“ _Come together like the Heretic would have us do?”_

“ _No. You and I.”_

_  
“You're a daft old fool, Archer...speak on._

***

That was before all that came next, of course. Before they started comparing notes, propped up in bed and sipping bowls of soup, and came to the conclusion that heeding the Skeksis and heeding Aughra were equally likely to get them both killed.

Before the heated declaration of the conclusion they had come to, perhaps not the softest way to repay skekGra and urGoh for feeding and sponging them, but one that demanded saying nonetheless. Before tracking down the Gelfling, being shot at, and trying again, this time with urVa standing closer to the light. Before skekSo, and urSu, and blood and teeth and metal and bindings, and Skeksis crying out in such terrible agony as the essence worked its way out of their systems, and the things they had said as they all came back to themselves.

Before they risked it all, just to try it another way.

Before it _worked._

***

They have a home together now. Or at least, that's what urVa calls it.

SkekMal insists it's a shack they summer in, and that it's very similar to the shack they winter in, and that they barely even put it to use. But urVa maintains that there's a certain kind of joy in having a place to return to, even if it's just a familiar roof over one's head. He says that they've earned it.

And so skekMal hangs his trophies, claims his side of the bed, and sets about the business of making sure their meat stores never run low. And if the time sees the silly place becoming piled high with quilts and furs, the ceilings strung with strings of herbs and onions, all of it fluffy and domestic...well, it's _theirs._ It _should_ be full of things they like.

He still considers himself a solitary hunter, even if most of their treks into the wilds of Thra now occur side by side. UrVa is still the very definition of Mystic nagging, even if he is, in skekMal's eyes, the best of them without question. They still bicker and snipe endlessly – and every night, fall asleep with their tails draped together.

When they're together, it doesn't matter that things will never be the same between themselves, the Skeksis, and the urRu.

Thra is at peace. And somehow, so are they.

“Do you ever think,” urVa says to him one evening as they're finishing their tea, “that this might have gone a different way?”

“What? As in you running off with the Swimmer?”

“Not quite.” He has that look to him that skekMal recognizes well, the one that he always gets when the days turn long and warm, the way they were when he started his slow journey to confront skekMal for what he knew might be the last time. “What might have become of us, of Thra, if our parts in the song concluded that day...how very close we were.”

SkekMal snorts and refills his cup.

“They would have made a mess of it. Every last one of them. And we wouldn't have this silly little game of Gelfling house we've found ourselves in.”

A hint of a smile materializes on urVa's muzzle. “One might say we cheated our destinies. _I_ wouldn't...but one might.”

“One can piss into the wind.”

The smile manifests in full. They don't speak again until their second cups are sipped down to the last dregs.

“SkekMal. If I were to make an early venture towards the bedroom, with no intention of sleeping, would you follow me?”

“You _know_ I would.”

“Excellent.”

And so he does, and so skekMal does. And for all he grumbles, there is no broad, lumbering body peppered with scars that match his own that skekMal would sooner fall behind...no scars he would rather share, right over their hearts.

No. SkekMal never thought that it would end this way.

How very, very glad he is to have been wrong.


End file.
